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Anime in America: Theron and Carl's Best (and Most Notable) of 2009

When I read statements like "Spice and Wolf for being bracingly different" ... I laugh MIGHTILY. So, twenty-something dopey guy gawking at cherubish female who likes being naked is bracingly different. Aha. Never seen that before, nope.

So, by your definition, every single aspect of a show has to be "bracingly different" for it to satisfy that description?

Charred Knight wrote:

I get that part, the problem is that it still doesn't make any sense. [/quote Ugh. Okay, this is my last attempt, then. So to spoiler[repent Lelouch becomes a guy worse than Charles a man whose entire reign was basically spent killing people. ]

This is where you're having problems, I think: because you're stuck on this idea that spoiler[Lelouch is trying to redeem himself. He clearly isn't. He never once considers the rightness or the wrongness of his actions from a moral standpoint, so that doesn't even factor into his equation. The only thing that he cares about - and he makes this point abundantly clear on several occasions - is making a world that's safe for Nunally, and to him any means justify that end.]

Quote:

spoiler[Oh also his plan is entirely dependant on going into a massive fortress without anyone figuring out his whereabouts like he was Solid Snake, also he has the athletic abilities of a man whose morbidly obese. He also must pre-record a video of him talking so that it looks like he is actually somewhere else, meaning he basically has to know what Schneizel is thinking right down to the very last minute.]

Why get hung up on improbable ploys like this? That's all stock and trade of the series. You either accept these schemes, however implausible they may be to execute, or you can never find series like this entertaining. (Same goes for most James Bond flicks and a lot of other action blockbusters that have come out over the past couple of decades.) Besides, that spoiler[ Lelouch can predict exactly what Schneizel will say] is not only a ploy he uses elsewhere in the series but also one (admittedly hamhanded) way of showing off Lelouch's intelligence.

Charred Knight wrote:

You know instead of just spoiler[reforming Britannia, and making peace with everyone] That made sense to you? I can see how it might, but you would basically have to say that Charles, Lelouch, and Schneizel are simply insane. Even by the low standards set by the rest of Code Geass R2 that's still badly written.

It's a bad idea to extend this discussion much further, I've said so before, but I'll briefly point out a couple of things.

spoiler[Pretty much everything from the finale of the first season to the next-to-last arc of R2 is an attempt to push Lelouch past his own limits and, in short, break him. That's what ends up removing his inhibitions and putting him in the necessary emotional and mental state to make certain decisions.] Objectively speaking they might not be the best, but then again neither human beings nor any fictional characters who go through all that crap are supposed to be perfectly rational and immune to so much emotional baggage. Lelouch isn't going to be an exception.

Call me the world's biggest idiot, or just crazy, but I think that makes more than enough sense from a literary and dramatic perspective, even if plausibility and realism aren't really part of the equation. As much as significant portions of Code Geass R2 were poorly executed, I think what would be senseless is wanting Lelouch to just wake up one day, pretend nothing had happened and push the "right" buttons out of nowhere as if he was just another member of the audience, in order to meet Charred Knight's expectations regardless of the story's preexisting direction.

In short, the story could have done a far better job of presenting itself but what you wanted is a different one.

In other words Lelouch basically did all that for an (Code Geass R2's ending)spoiler[elaborate death equals redemption]

Key wrote:

So, by your definition, every single aspect of a show has to be "bracingly different" for it to satisfy that description?

o_O

YES.

Oh wait- let me guess... it's a parody of itself! How ingenius! Give me a break.

Charred Knight wrote:

In other words Lelouch basically did all that for an (Code Geass R2's ending)spoiler[elaborate death equals redemption]

Ugh. That doesn't sound quite right. Did we watch two different shows?
Lelouch gathered the spoiler[world's hatred, by acting like a tyrant; while knowing and having in mind "Zero Requiem". Once he did that Suzaku held the task of acting like Zero the savior, and kill the "evil" tyrant, which was all Lelouch's acting. He needed that "elaborate death" so that his plans would be entirely successful and believable, yes, he needed to have the world believing that he was completely evil, and the world's enemy].
I just can't see that as redemption, rather, what part of it was?

Believe whatever you want to, but stop trying to force it on others.

I will admit that I feel strongly about this, and that can get annoying, but I am not going to apologize for being who I am.

Anime in America: Theron and Carl's Best (and Most Notable)

As for being able to forgive the plot points.

Willing Suspension of disbelief is not a "Get out of Jail Free" card for Directors, you can't just have something happen and then explain that where supposed to ignore the fact that it's impossible.

@Key

I guess most of the opinions on Toradora differ on the execution, particularly in the 2nd half of the series. I think it started off so well that when it went downhill it really took a lot of its good appeal with it. But, it’s all on how the viewer received it.

Charred Knight wrote:

As for being able to forgive the plot points. Willing Suspension of disbelief is not a "Get out of Jail Free" card for Directors, you can't just have something happen and then explain that where supposed to ignore the fact that it's impossible.

Can I ask an honest question here? I was only half-watching the series while it was on Adult Swim so I wont bring up anything technical about the show, but why do you accept so many impossibilities in the series already, but can't seem to get around this one? You've got giant, agile, flying robot suits (pure fiction), people with magic eyes with different abilities (pure fiction), various characters who appear young but are hundreds of years old (pure fiction), and that's only the beginning. Yet you're hung up on a guy who's already shown himself to be extremely intelligent predicting the course of a conversation? You can't enjoy science fiction without suspending disbelief. Complaining about something being unbelievable in a work of science fiction is like complaining something is believable in a biography.

Emerje

The rest we're just at an "agree to disagree" point, I guess, as Carl and I apparently saw a lot in Toradora! that you and some others didn't. I'm curious, though: where in the series do you think it "went downhill?"

dtm42 wrote:

Expecting Code Geass of all shows to be internally consistent is rather hilarious. But mostly a pipe dream. Nothing about the show was ever consistent, besides the fact that it was inconsistent (predictability in unpredictability).

It was consistently hilarious, the numerous bondage fetish scenes, the Chess game between Lelouch and Schneizel, Chinese Eunechs, Chinese Eunechs who is also midget, Charles' speeches, just plain Charles, the bad outfits, the hilarious death scenes, the expression Lelouch gives after spoiler[the destruction of most of Tokyo],and Nina humping a table.